The Ashes of Nayru
by E. Gray
Summary: Link returns to Hyrule after a long absence, finding it inexplicably decimated. What has happened to the divine protection of the sages? And where, through all of this, is Princess Zelda? OoT Universe w/ mixed canon. Rated M for violence/language.
1. Horizon

**Disclaimer:** The series The Legend of Zelda and its characters were created by Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma, and is owned and licensed by Nintendo. I am simply borrowing them for my amusement. No money was made in relation to this story. In fact, money was probably lost because I was supposed to be working when I was writing this…^_~

**-1: Horizon -**

"_Shadow Temple. Here is gathered the greed and hatred of Hyrule's bloody past."_

--carved into wall in Shadow Temple, _The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time_

Gray. Gray stone streaked with gray rain. It cut down from the sky in cruel, arctic needles and drummed his shoulders; hopped up like small glass crickets when it struck the low gravestones. The granite markers bore black soot in the crevices of their carvings; filth that could not be washed away by the daily rain in Kakariko Village. At least the rain had not changed.

The graveyard had burned along with the rest of Kakariko; but the stones remained among the raven hued straw that had once been crab grass that bloomed with those bell-shaped yellow wildflowers he remembered so well. When one is a child, he tends to pay more attention to the flowers than to the grave markers. The cemetery had grown past its old borders since he'd last set foot in it—the high walls of musty reddish earth still enclosed the older portion of it, the deku vines crawling along the exposed roots of blackened oaks and the eroded wooden pickets that feebly closed off the entrance to the Shadow Temple. Yet where Dampé's old hut had been, and the open areas leading to the village had once been clear of buried dead, new graves had sprung up like unfortunate weeds—the markers both of granite and half-incinerated wood.

How long ago the village had been torched, and by whom, he couldn't begin to guess. He dimly could compare the memory he had of this place to the negative of it that really remained. The town had once been so hopeful that it would grow; that the great Impa's efforts to help her hometown flourish into a bustling city would bear fantastic fruit. The ashen skeleton of that memory stretched up into his view in the form of the scorched cadaver of the Windmill blades. Even in the dugout of the graveyard, he could not escape the sight. The village now was ghostly, empty and silent beyond the thick gurgle of the perpetual shower that slithered down the charred wooden remains of homes and shops.

If the atomic sky had not been weeping down the frigid rain that had long soaked through his thick outer tunic (and that now was permeating the silk lined mail he wore beneath it), he knew the same cold feeling would have been crawling across his skin. This was the place he had sacrificed his childish innocence to fight for, only to return after his long absence to find it only a more tragic wasteland than he had prevented it from becoming in his long strife against Ganondorf.

Yet despite the chilled nausea the sight of the now grave teeming Kakariko cemetery, he felt an irrefutable pull to remain there. Obeying his inexplicable instinct, Link walked along the jagged rows of ruined memorials and makeshift tablets, his eyes dragging along each grimy name as if he was looking to recognize one.

Whose name was he expecting, dreading to see? He was sure he must have known, but through his stunned and furious torpor, he could scarcely reason. His mind had gone half dead once he'd reached Death Mountain's crater and taken his first look at the blackened panorama of Hyrule Kingdom. He'd come from the northeast, having spent several years living in a desert city just past the rises of Ikana Canyon in Termina. Ikana was the land of unrested souls, and the Desert City, Lut Molhoun, was shrouded in perpetual darkfall. The endless night had become a strange comfort, a guilty solitude. When the strange but seductive allure of returning to Hyrule had beckoned to him, leaving the dark sky and blazing stars left him longing for a clear sky now as he endured rain—something he had not seen for nearly ten years.

When he stood atop Death Mountain, squinting across the overcast vista of the Kingdom of Hyrule with its shadow immersed forest beyond the sprawling black fields and crumbling cities; Link felt a dread crawl through his abdomen that he had yet to shake. Now in the village at the foot of the grumbling volcano, he found only a skeleton of what he remembered.

The rain drummed, the apprehension swelled, and Link's eyes fell like lead upon the name on the granite slab at his feet.

_Malon Fara Lonlon_

_Aged 16_

_Beloved daughter and friend. Life is eternal and love is immortal. Death is only a horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight._

Malon. Link finally recognized the dread that was now twisting like a roused snake in his stomach. It hadn't been the name he was searching for, he knew, but perhaps that surprise made it all the worse. He could picture the petite redhead in her ranch-hand leather dress, swaying gently in the evening wind while she hummed to herself, to the horses…staring at the pale stars at dusk and missing her mother. How could such a thing happen? Where was her father…where was Talon? Why wasn't someone there to protect her from whatever death befell her?

Why? The young man set his jaw, betraying himself.

Because he had chosen to leave Hyrule. If he had been here, instead of off in Termina dealing with the frustrating crusade with Majora's Mask, off in Lut Molhoun finding something resembling peace or acceptance with his destiny—he could have…

But why? Why was it always on his shoulders? Wasn't he allowed to make his own decisions without endangering the happiness of others? It seemed that everywhere he went there was disaster. It didn't seem just. By the age of 12 he'd already been the Hero of Time, already known what it was like to be an adult (albeit a slightly naïve facsimile of an adult), and then found himself in Termina trying to outsmart time once more. How many times had he turned back the clock those three days? How many times had he asked himself how he'd been drawn into another massive responsibility that many were simply oblivious to? It made him think of Anju and Kafei, finding each other only a few moments before the moon began its inevitable descent toward the town. It was for these people that he spent his days alone, drawing his sword and cleaning his cuts. To preserve happiness. Perhaps it was in pursuit of his own elusive happiness that he'd returned to Hyrule, only to find a new type of misery. He supposed he was mostly used to his solitary lifestyle. He never had been much of a talker, anyway. Sometimes, though, he still wondered. Wondered as he watched groups of friends chattering at open markets, lovers hand in hand in the town square; wondered what it would be like…

What it would be like to be normal.

He'd wondered that most often while watching Kotori with her companions at the Lut Molhoun farmer's marketplace. She had been there, nearly every night, buying deku roots and sweet potatoes, with long golden hair that unavoidably reminded the young man of the Princess Zelda he had coveted for years as a younger boy, half in love and half in anger with her…somehow, she was the embodiment of the joy he could picture for himself that was forever just beyond his grasp. Perhaps that was why he watched the girl, Kotori, eyes concealed beneath the hood of his cloak, back firmly against the mud brick wall of the plaza. He still found himself thinking of the Seventh Sage on occasion, even after all these years. The corner of his mouth twitched.

Not that it really mattered.

Link knelt, his mail clad knee sinking into the tarry mud at the foot of her marker. He removed the heavy, black steel gauntlet on his right arm and touched the letters of her name, filled with the dark char from the fires and slick wet with the endless rain. He rubbed at the letters fiercely, cleaning the black from her name and around it. He would not let her grave, too, be defiled by this disgrace. The poor girl hadn't deserved this. Even if he was no longer the Hero of Time, the pure hearted warrior who had saved Hyrule from a grim fate—he would still find out what had happened to this place—to his home…but he wouldn't take the blame for it, despite the guilt that hammered down on him with unbelievable gravity.

He scanned the rest of the graves. Names that rung rusted bells in the back of his mind only made the futile anger curl tighter and hotter in his stomach. At the back of the cemetary, he confronted the Royal Mausoleum's plaque. He had searched each stone, her name never appeared. He had acidly almost hoped to see the Princess' name—only to fulfill his idea that this could only happen to Hyrule with the Seventh Sage dead. Yet with his search coming up with nothing more than dirty hands and a quickly building and bordering on unbottleable shame, he couldn't push back the relief that trembled as a vague emotion behind the engulfing fury. Zelda D'Harkanian had to be alive. Unless, if she was dead, her body had gone unburied. He didn't want to think about that.

Link replaced the gauntlet, wriggling his fingers through the open tips and feeling his wet palm seal against the rough leather lining.

He would find her. He would find all the sages and demand to know what they had let befall the kingdom the goddesses had ordained they protect. He felt that Farore was still with him, still in spirit guiding him with the triforce of courage, even though he was now not as pure as he was when she had chosen him. She surely had her objections to his use of the mask.

The mask was packed away behind his shield even now, the white expressionless face with its tribal violet markings. He could not part with it. The Fierce Deity—he had gone through a lot for that mask, and it belonged to him. It had chosen him in the same way Farore had, it was a grand tool of battle, and he always had use for a good tool. He would _not_ part with it for the sake of some sort of would-be morality.

Link passed the tomb, the humid air sinking tiny barbed teeth into the bare skin on his neck, grazed the tip of his nose and rasped across his cheeks, despite the lack of a noticeable breeze. He was exhausted from his journey over the mountain of fire, the journey up the craggy northeastern face of Death Mountain was far more trying than the carved out road down its southern side. He had already been to Goron City in the hollow on the side of the volcano, but it too was as deserted as Kakariko. Looking up to the cliff, edged by the weathered pickets, Link removed his Longshot from his pack, tugging the hood up on his cloak and aiming for a pitch smudged stump, recalling the notes of a familiar Nocturne as he did so, though he no longer carried an ocarina.

He was taking a gamble that the Shadow Temple wasn't as destroyed as Kakariko; but it was the closest place he could begin his search for a familiar face and an explanation. The air in the graveyard breathed an unsettling chill against him, and the rain was falling ever heavier.


	2. House of Cards

**-2: House of Cards -**

The great stone door to the temple was open, the torches outside already lit and blazing through the all blanketing mist. Beyond the dark gaping mouth of the entrance, the Shadow Temple inspired a cold prickle to prowl up the young man's spine. Just being inside the subterranean shrine was to drown in darkness. It surrounded and closed in like strangling black fingers, held back only a few inches by a burning torch's divine circle of light; a feeble bastion to ward back the suffocating shadow from claiming his limbs, his heart; from flooding his already black thoughts with their own filth and discontent. The humid breath of the great mausoleum wormed beneath the edges of his armor and crawled over his skin, reeking of blood and the dead flesh of sacrifices to the shadow. The yawning entrance and narrow corridors held a familiarity, though his memories of his exploits as the Hero of Time faded with every passing day.

Despite the temple's ever disquieting nature, there were fewer creatures lurking in the dank corners than he'd anticipated, and were no more than a thrust of his blade away from death. Even without the eye of truth or a torch, he navigated his way toward the core of the temple: a great tabernacle feeding the hatred that seemed settled in the walls, guarding the modest gate to the sage's vault. The folded steel of his sword was barely worth wiping clean by the time he'd reached the chamber at the back. He climbed the steps up, each wet footstep of his heavy black boots on the granite brick reverberating across the vast emptiness of the cavernous darkness, the echo seeming to shiver on forever until it shrank into the spatial hiss of the seemingly infinite silence. It was funny how ultimate silence, ultimately was too blaring to bear. He was grateful for the echo.

Far beyond apprehensive, Link stared into the dim sage chamber, which he last recalled being occupied by the phantom beast, that had likely been born from the ill housed in the temple when it was lacking a sage's care. In the event that Impa had died and the temple was without protection, he prepared himself for another battle with such a creature. He had seen it several times before. Such monsters dwelling in desecrated temples always settled where there was the most energy; almost always the former sage's chamber. He pressed against the heavy door, his open fingered gauntlets clicking duly against the weight of the wood. A tallow candle flickered in the velvet darkness, but beyond that and some simple, almost slipshod furnishings, it seemed his brief journey through the temple had been a waste of his time. The sage chamber was vacant. Yet a candle still burned a hole in the blackness, and it had all but shrunk to its end.

"Impa?" He asked the dark room. It didn't reply.

"Impa?" The darkness he'd left behind answered, his own hollow echo.

A quick set of threatening footfalls at his back sent him whirling, with a practiced movement of shoulder and left arm unsheathing the Goron smelted claymore from his back and pulling the blade toward the intended attack. Steel shrieked against steel, sparking blue in the pitch dusk. He brought up his shield with his right, smiting the opponent backward, straining quickly forward with his legs. There was a flash; a crack like an exploding deku nut, and all at once his assailant was behind him, lunging with dual blades toward his back. His mail resisted the slashes, though the impact was still bruising. His cloak had torn under the edges of his opponent's weapons, but the powerful swings demanded recovery time, and had left it, for a fraction of a moment, vulnerable. He spun with the blade, drawing a great arc into the thick dark and landing a insidious strike to the attacker's abdominal armor. With a wheeze, it fell back onto the stone floor, the oily light from the burning candle past the opened chamber door only bright enough to cast a feeble vesper over her features.

The pale Shiekah savant once known as the Great Impa brought an arm up from the ground, mouthing the beginning words of an incantation before the tip of Link's weapon was pointed in the unprotected soft spot created between her clavicles. She stared up defiantly.

"Who are you who has infiltrated this holy place?" She addressed him so formally, and he didn't know whether to blame the darkness for disguising him or the years he'd spent away having transformed him so. The Shiekah gripped her spectral kris at her sides, though she was plainly beaten. It was like the shadow race to have accepted the threat of death as easily as being aware of their life. Her eyes held no fear. But no recognition either.

Link's voice remained suspicious, he kept his tones as brusque as he could manage, holding the relief he felt at seeing her face at arm's length. "Holy place? When did this blood stinking dungeon become sanctioned?"

The sage seemed nonplused, regarding the cloaked figure that had so quickly bettered her in battle. The shade eclipsed the face hidden beyond the draping hood of the hero; but his voice, though metamorphosed and rarely heard in any case, was still the same.

"Link..." She peered up at him a long moment before nudging the sword from her collar slowly and standing, her voice ravaged by the hardships about which he'd come to inquire. She kept a cautious distance, still unsure. "We…thought you'd left us."

"Left you?" The sword whined in protest as he sheathed it. "You mean you thought I'd died?"

The Sage of Shadow was silent a moment, studying what she could discern of his face, before starting up the craggy steps toward the antechamber "Perhaps we did…. You'd just… been gone so long…then when the plagues came, we knew it wasn't impossible you too had been claimed." She motioned toward the orb of amber candlelight and he followed her through the doorframe. "Maybe it was just an excuse we'd made up to explain why you weren't coming back in such a desperate time…"

Bending now to rest on a low wooden stool, Link examined the face of an Impa ten years older than his memory recalled. It seemed everything that he remembered of this place had lost something of its luster. She seemed to think the same of him, though she did not say as much. He swept back his hood, though something in him would have preferred to hold onto the strength of the anonymity it afforded him.

"Link." She repeated his name, as if saying it spilled some sort of antiseptic relief into her doubting heart, then shook her head. "Zelda will be so pleased."

Ah, yes, the princess, so she lived. It was probably too early to find solace in simply the fact that she was alive. In fact, he'd been telling himself for years that he should be furious with her, but he couldn't help the measure of ease that trickled though his chest, like a swig of medicine. He ignored it, nonetheless.

"What happened here, Impa? What happened to this place while I was gone?"

Impa's eyes were tired, and downcast themselves before drawing back up to his face to reply. "You were gone a long time. Many things have happened, not just that which resulted in what you have witnessed beyond the walls of the temple."

The hero's left eyebrow quirked upward slightly. He'd grown up to be a striking young man; tall and lean—but with a look in his eye that she had not expected nor remembered. He was mostly obscured by a heavy looking scarlet cloak with a distinctive pattern of a far away desert down the back and sides of it, but if he had been spending time in the desert, his face didn't look it. He was still alabaster pale; still as unsunkissed as a kokiri child should be.

"You have seen the ruins of Kakariko and Goron City, I presume. Death Mountain erupted almost two years ago during the war, and incinerated the town and those who sought shelter inside its walls."

"What war?"

"Nearly three years after you left, barbarian hordes came from the western desert. The Gerudoes had little chance against them, for their numbers were in the thousands. Most of the Gerudoes were slain in a week or less. They occupied the Colossus and the Valley before waging aggressive sieges on the palace walls. The merchants in the castle market fled to Kakariko and days after the volcano erupted—almost as if it was some factor of the Umbaru Tribe's onslaught."

He considered the savagery of men that would take no mercy on a tribe of women, slaying them all without striking a deal to halt their massacre. Thinking it through further only condemned the helpless Gerudo women to torture and rape of the worst kind; they had probably welcomed death in that fate's stead. "Did this tribe break through the castle's defenses?"

The woman's features washed with guilt. "Indeed. Their footsoldiers torched the market square and assaulted the inner cloister, slaughtering the Hylian Knights and shopkeepers…whoever remained in the plaza. They used a multitude of trebuchets and burning projectiles, sometimes even sending their own men over the walls with the machines. The King D'Harkanian, rest his soul, was killed, yet Princess Zelda escaped by some great miracle of the goddesses and came on horseback to this very place in tears and soaked with blood…asking all the while how to obtain contact with you."

Link was silent, the cavernous quiet screaming in the space that was not taken up by voices. "How long did all this take?"

"Just short of a year, I think. Hyrule's been in a bit of a dark age since. There aren't many remaining Hylians here, Link. The Zoras have dammed the river; the Gorons have fled almost entirely far to the north in Snowhead. A great deal of the forest was decimated by wildfires."

"Was that also their doing?" there was a new note of hostility in his otherwise quiet tone.

The shadow sage folded her arms on the deku wood table and rested her head in the cradle they created. She seemed so tired. "I don't think anyone knows if it was or not. The land itself seemed to rebel after the hordes overthrew the monarchy. It could have been a result of the eruption, or the drought following."

"Do the hordes remain in occupation even now? What else is there here for them?"

"I dare say there aren't many left, but I can't tell you for certain. The Umbaru are like locusts, coming in to devour what they could and leaving a husk in their wake."

"But what did they have to gain by executing the Monarch?"

Impa's eyes peered up at him over the gentle white hills of her forearms. "Eradicating any threat of resistance or rebellion against them as they consumed what the kingdom could offer, I suppose."

His gaze looked suddenly exhausted and unfocused. "What a waste." He looked away from the Shiekah woman to the dark basalt-block floor. "What is keeping the kingdom from rebuilding?"

"Lack of population, for one thing. Lack of faith or spirit, maybe. Lack of forces to take back the land from the remaining Umbaru."

"So some do remain in occupation. Why?"

"You're asking the wrong person. Their actions are beyond my sense of reason. I assume they have other plans for this land, they have some strong leaders that might be their nobles."

"Guys with a lot of ears on their necklaces, huh?"

"You have the right idea."

"And the sages?"

The dark peering eyes set behind the horizon of her arms once again. "Nabooru was killed in the Siege at the Colossus, defending the Spirit Temple. Ruto's main concern became with the survival and well being of the Zoras after the death of King D'Harkanian, though she worked vigilantly during the siege to save what she could. I think she took too much responsibility upon herself for the fate of Hyrule. Darunia left Death Mountain just after the eruption, taking the surviving Gorons on their pilgrimage to Snowhead. His son that bore your name was killed in the eruption…" She shook her head softly, eyes unfocused and peering up at a wall." He was devastated beyond what I can describe. The Fire Temple, as you can guess, was destroyed."

"What about Saria?"

Impa hesitated. "I'm not sure what has become of Saria. We don't hear much of the Kokiri in any case, but after the fall, she returned to the Forest Temple, where I assume she remains with the Kokiri children. The meadow beyond the Lost Woods is safe from intrusion of any but those with untainted vision."

That was right. The so-called untainted vision of the innocent. A "pure heart". He was sure he could no longer set foot in the Sacred Forest Meadow, perhaps even in the forest at all. Link had not forgotten the song she'd taught him, though he did not carry the ocarina with him any longer. But Saria would be safe there, and she could protect what she could. It was a small, bitter comfort in a flood of new tragedy.

"There doesn't seem much that I can do now." Link felt the urge to groan, but kept his voice level. "Where is the princess, Impa? What does she plan on doing to restore her kingdom?"

"There isn't much to restore." The woman whispered. "I'm not sure what the princess is planning, if she is planning anything at all. The Umbaru Warlords that remain wield great power, and there is little to gain from challenging them—especially when all that will be gained is death."

Link glowered. "It is no surprise to me that this land ended up in ruins with a spineless outlook like that."

The Shadow sage sat up in her seat, her eyes suddenly ablaze. "This is easy for you to criticize, Link! You have not been here for nearly four years! You left Hyrule to fend for itself, something you knew right well it could not."

"I'm no soothsayer, I refuse to take responsibility for your failures. I can not be everywhere at once." His jaw clenched. "Hyrule fell apart like a house of cards and now won't even pick itself back up. What happened to the strong citadel guarded by the sages? What about the seventh sage and her link with the Triforce? I regret not being here to aid Hyrule in its times of hardship, but I _cannot_ be expected to remain imprisoned here simply to guard this place and have no freedom of my own. Your placing the blame on me is pitiful and unlike the Impa I knew as a child. It is _you_ that has become weak. I think I'd rather continue this argument with the heir of this land than mediate with you any further. Where can I find her?"

The Impa that Link recalled was made of iron; hardship rolled off of her like beads of water. Her strength was partially what had supported his childhood quest when it was cracking under the weight of fate; it had protected Zelda D'Harkanian into adulthood. The flames in her eyes had smoldered away and her spirit seemed doused. Why? Even now, she would not look at him in the eye, her gaze dragged along the rough tabletop.

"I…no longer know her location. She has come only a few times since the death of her father, yet she never stays long nor has much to tell me. Since the day she rode here, fleeing the massacre at the palace…"

"You take me for a fool, Impa. The princess has only so many allies, no more trusted or powerful than you. Furthermore, her location is part of her safety, something which you have sworn to ensure…"

Impa's hard eyes flickered up toward him, the candlelight casting strange emotions over her face. Never so much had the markings on her face resembled tears as they did now. "I cannot help you find her. My only suggestion is to remain here until she returns to consult me."

"I have no interest in sleeping in this temple."

The ghost of a sad smile tugged at Impa's lips. "My apologies. Of course you wouldn't."

She watched him stand, the small arsenal tucked beneath his shield chattering against itself. His eyes remained on her. "You must have your reasons for not trusting me with the truth…nevertheless…" He paused almost accusingly. "I will find her myself." He disappeared through the door, and the Shiekah launched after him.

"Link! What are you planning to do? Please, don't charge into battle without knowing what you're up against! Hyrule would not fall to something that is easily overcome. The sages failed, and our last bastion of hope lay only in you." Her eyes looked distraught as she regarded him halfway down the stairs, the most expressive face the stoic woman had ever shown him. Her voice trembled. "Where did you go?"

For the first time since seeing him as a child, Link smiled lightly. "The cursed land." At her expression, he turned back to her entirely. "I ended up in Lut Molhoun, beyond Ikana. How else do you think I made it through this place without a light? In your memories, I fought Ganondorf only three years ago and then I vanished. The…" A tremble threatened to edge into his voice, and he tamped it down ruthlessly. "The princess took the Ocarina and sent me back to only a few days after you rode past me at the castle drawbridge, fleeing Ganondorf's attack."

Impa, aghast, was just short of gaping at him. "_Why_?"

"She said…to regain my lost time. So I was to have the privilege of witnessing the seven years of Hyrule's decay that I knew was to come."

Her voice was weak. She made to question the reasoning of the act again, but instead prompted him. "So you left..."

He didn't bother with a nod, and all at once, she comprehended the fierce and austere look in his eyes that had puzzled her before. She'd seen him briefly three years before, handing over the Shadow Medallion. But that had been a Link that never was; only a shadow of his childhood self. This man here, this was the man Link had grown into after really living those ten years of his life, shaped into a mercenary by a lonely fate that was marked on the back of his hand at birth. And now he was headed down the stairs and into the dark corridor.

"Link..." She stopped him again, trying to call up her internal apologies into words, but instead he spoke for her, not turning.

"Thank you for being alive, Impa."

A watery smile blossomed on her white lips. "I could never leave the princess…or you, alone." Then, as he began to walk away, "The Lost Woods. You may find her there."

The young man didn't respond, the clack of his heavy boots resounding through the black hallways and to her ears, and she watched the space he'd occupied until she could no longer hear his presence in the temple. Then, the sage spoke.

"How long have you been there?"

The darkness behind her replied in a soft voice. "Long enough."

"_Why_ did you do it? You never told me that you'd known all along why he'd disappeared."

"You already know. He was still a child. Despite how it wounded me, I knew…he had to grow up naturally…even if it sent him to a place I could never reach. I could not simply let him skip those years and be denied his right to…" the tremulous voice seized. "You would have done the same! Please don't tell me it was wrong, or I have spent these years of despair in vain." She emerged at Impa's side in her Shiekan cuirass, eyes swimming in denied tears.

Impa was silent, staring into the dark corridor where the hero had stood. "Suddenly I understand _everything_ so much more clearly." She turned to face the girl again, a wounded shame on her downcast countenance. Before the girl could retort, she spoke again. "The years he has lived since have made his eyes cold. You gave him the right to age naturally, and as you thought, he became a different man than the unstained shadow that was created of his childhood heart."

"Men's eyes are dark these days; a man who kills does not often have a gentle expression. It would have been only a danger to him to leave him otherwise."

"Perhaps it would have. Though a talented warrior, he knew nothing of adult life. It is up to you to judge if it was right to deny him to that prolonged innocence."

"Do you believe what you say, Impa? I could not forbid him to live the years that had been taken from him! There was no other choice for me; I had to send him back so he could become who time deemed he was meant to be." In the darkness, Impa spied a glassy tear snake down the young woman's pale cheek, which she batted away angrily.

"Neither choice is without flaws. You chose between his life as the pure-hearted Hero that Destiny had intended, and his life as a man that Time would have created. Did your feelings for him as a man sway you toward your choice? If you'd chosen Destiny, would he have been here to battle the Umbaru when they arrived from the Clouded Valley?"

"How much could he have done against so many? You put too much on his shoulders, Impa! Would someone pure remain so for long, slaying men? How dare you accuse me of such a selfish…" she hiccuped with a sudden rush of emotion. "I was only thinking of him. My feelings are of no consequence. They are simply what one feels toward someone who would risk everything to save so many from misery…"

"In that case, it's strange that my feelings are so different from yours. I think you deceive yourself. Just remember that in return, you bestowed upon him the miseries he'd been denied. Neither of us are correct. There is only what is and what would have been. You heard what I told him. Are you going to find him there?" Impa's arms folded themselves, her fingers tapping slowly on her bare bicep.

Her head dropped in a hesitant nod. "I haven't a choice."

"And will you tell him why the sages could not protect this land?" Impa's eyes turned back to her, tight-lipped but apprehensive. She watched the girl nod silently, brow pinched with the same painful humiliation.

"You are frightened of him."

The former noble straightened her back so quickly it was more a knee-jerk reaction, looking her attendant in the eye. "I am _no_ such thing." She brought her arm down quickly toward the ground, and in a sudden globe of light and smoke, vanished.

Once again, Impa was regarding an empty hall filled with dank air, and now accompanied by no one but a ghost made of sweet smelling smoke, to whom she voiced her thoughts:

"You are afraid of what he will say…when you tell him."


	3. The Legend of Zelda

**-3: The Legend of Zelda -**

The vague, almost subliminal melody of the woods faded in either direction he went. It was a certainty that one of the paths led further into the forest, but with his mind clouded, he couldn't clear his thoughts enough to focus on that faint song. It was hummed by the wind through the tree limbs, the rustle of breeze, the continuing rain along the heavy canopy overhead. It was everywhere and nowhere, and as he listened for it, it would dip in and out of his perception, but from which direction he was unable to discern. He couldn't keep his mind clear. His thoughts strayed to the Siege at the Colossus, the death of Darunia's son, the assault on the castle, the undisclosable location of the princess of Hyrule.

Or former princess, in any case. The bitterness and tangled emotions that went with that title were never far following it.

Perhaps the old wives' tale that only children could find their way through the Lost Woods was based on some sort of fact after all, some magic of the Forest Temple or the spirit of the sacred forest keeping away those with darkness in their hearts, even simply the darkness of a heart no longer bathed in the innocence and hope of the very young. Of any place in Hyrule, there was a deep magic in these forests, which extended down far into the southern prefecture and into a feudal province they called Ordona that eventually turned coastal. There were parts of his mind that still knew this place, parts of his memories that sent a swelling nostalgia into his chest that was longing to help him find his way, but perhaps the bitterness, the spite, the _anger_ that now dwelt in him, would not let him pass. Those emotions now seemed to be flickering in and out like of his thoughts like flame, swimming up suddenly like ugly fish in a dark lake, and surfacing in him suddenly enough to make him lose the direction of the faint melody of the woods. He was sure most people would never hear it to begin with; but he'd grown up here. As the Hero of Time, he'd navigated through here many times; adult only in physicality, his innocence preserved enough to make it to the Sacred Forest Meadow. But even then, he recalled, the music had become fainter and fainter each time he returned, almost like he had forgotten what he was looking for. It was a strange feeling, like trying desperately to remember a dream upon waking.

So, struggling to hear, Link stood numbly at another crossroad, staring into the dark paths that extended each direction with an armored hand up against his forehead, straining against the natural sounds of the wood to find the faint lilt of Saria's song. And once he'd caught a note passing on the rain laden breeze, another sound drove the music away again, along with every thought in his brain and all the breath in his lungs.

"Do you know _why_ I am called Zelda?" A voice from dreams of long ago floated, disembodied, somewhere behind his left shoulder; and a foreign emotion he recalled also from youth, a certain sense of introversion, flooded him before the usual cocktail of feelings followed. He hesitated to turn right away, lest he lose his bearings completely.

"…Tell me." He replied quietly, a shrug evident in his tone. They'd always had a knack for disposing of formalities; a 'hello' wouldn't have done much good anyhow.

He heard her move now, soft footsteps crushing rotten leaves on the forest floor, a rustle of clothing and rain. "It's a legend in the royal family, that generations ago there was a good and virtuous King of Hyrule who was favored by the goddesses, and whom had been given the complete triforce by Nayru to lead Hyrule into a time of great prosperity…which he did…"

He turned slightly and she came into his sight; a vision of strange but still undeniable beauty in her Shikan armor, far less disguised and ambiguous as when she had appeared to him as Shiek those years before. An ornate but tarnished brass circlet adorned her forehead, but her wheat colored hair was pulled back tightly from her face and gathered together in a fall at the back of her head in what was more utilitarian than a noble aesthetic. Her figure was all tarnished bronze and scuffed auburn leather, from head to toe from her cuirass to her scraped boots. But where he would expect to see the winged triforce, the insignia of the Hylian Royals, there was simply the all-seeing eye of the shadow race. The Shiekah were sworn to protect the sovereign family, and now that there was but one royal remaining, the all-seeing eye was watching over her as a form of more symbolic and corporeal protection. Somehow reminded him once again of Shiek, her false identity she had assumed to hide herself and the triforce of wisdom from Ganondorf during his dark, seven year reign. He'd known even then, not _who_ she has, but _what_ she was: a woman, as the snug armor had shown her too narrow of waist, too shapely of thigh and hip, to be anything but. Now she was even more so, the exposed length of her neck and the prominent curve of her cheekbones bespoke that. Link did his best not to appear distracted by any of this or the long sweep of the dark cloak around her tall, slender silhouette. Even worn, destitute, her royal line dethroned and her kingdom in ruin, she still managed to cut such an authoritative and striking figure that his throat still ran a bit dry to look upon her after what felt like so long.

Her eyes sweeping over his at last, she continued at a distance. "But things couldn't continue this way. Tragedy struck the king once he had grown older, and he died an unexpected death, leaving to his son his kingdom and all his possessions…but to his son's astonishment, the triforce split when he attempted to claim it; not possessing all the requisite traits to control it in full. The son claimed only the Triforce of Power. Despite how he searched for the other pieces, despite how he sent his armies to far lands in search of the Sacred Realm; how he commissioned mercenaries to spelunk ruined temples for the lost fragments, they were nowhere to be found. A great wizard who had been a close advisor of the King, one day informed the Prince, or rather the new King of Hyrule, that the late king, his Father, had disclosed information regarding the triforce to but one person: his youngest daughter, Zelda."

Link watched her like a cat watches a bird. Fascinated but alert, he watched the pale countenance dip into shadow and back into the gray half-light of the mid-morning forest as she slowly and circuitously drew closer.

"The new king, accompanied by the wizard, approached his sister, and demanded of her the location of the other triforces. He knew not their purpose, only that something to which he was entitled had been denied him. The young princess refused to tell her avaricious brother anything, and in a fury, the wizard cast upon her an infinite sleep from which she could never awaken, and the wizard, having overspent his abilities, collapsed and breathed his last. Aggrieved at the tragic fate of the princess, the young kind placed her on an alter deep within the castle in hopes someone could revive her, and henceforth made it royal decree in memoriam that any girl child ever born into the Hylian Royal Bloodline bear the name of his lost sister, Zelda, to remember the tragedy so that it might never repeat." She spread out her arms as she grew near, a defiant upward tilt of her chin. "And thus I stand before you so named, the 23rd of that namesake."

Strangely dumbfounded by the story, and even further bewildered by the reasons for it, the once hero tilted his head, inclining his forehead toward her as though waiting for more. Finally he broke the silence. "And…what is accomplished by telling me this…_tale_?"

Her eyes watched him. There had always been a strange familiarity between them, and here it was now, sparking up the same tension as years before, but now more acutely, and with a more fragile civility between them bordering somewhere between infatuation and spite.

"Many things." She replied. "This is the story of why I am who I am. It is also the story of how the royal family lost the goddesses favor and the rule over the triforce with it. How greed is the purveyor of loss…" her eyes set into his. "And it is the story of who you are, as well."

His brow furrowed, patience suddenly thin. "How so?"

"The kings' advisors, sages and scholars of the history of Hyrule, saw the Prince's inability to control the triforce, and questioned the wisdom of allowing the royal family to control it. Only a person with perfect harmony of the three traits in their soul could completely control the triforce, the pieces otherwise causing tragedy and warfare, as in the bloody history of Hyrule's past since Din cultivated the land. Those advisors commissioned the construction of the Temple of Light and sealed it within the Sacred Realm, and the Temple of Time to lock out any with evil designs from ever entering it."

"Well, so much for that…" He intoned. It was of course plain that no matter how airtight they'd made the seal, Ganondorf's siege of Hyrule had been more calculated than that of the Umbaru. Link had been tricked into opening it for the Gerudo King, and thus plunged himself deeper into his stark destiny by sleeping for seven years until he was mature enough to claim the title of Hero of Time.

Zelda gave him a sharp look. "But of course the triforce split again when Ganondorf Dragmire tried to claim it as his own, just as with the greedy prince in the legend. The pieces went to those who embodied their purposes. Farore chose you. Nayru chose me. As it is always prophesized to be." She regarded him pointedly. "After all, the young man eventually charged with reviving the sleeping princess Zelda…the first princess Zelda…was an orphan from the forest villages in green garb, the Juror of Courage from whence Farore's triforce piece was recovered to seal in the Sacred Realm. And once the young royal was revived…the final piece lay with her; the Keeper of Knowledge."

He stared at her, bemused. "What…"

Zelda's voice faltered as she interrupted, her hands closing into fists that balled up against her chest, and her brows drawing together and upward expressively. "Don't you know how many times we've been thrown together? Demanded to continue our bloodlines separately so the recurring strife might not destroy our land? _Link_…don't you recall how Ganon swore vengeance on our descendants? How many times have you and I been cursed to be reborn over and over…all to protect this land?"

It was the first time she'd used his name since appearing. Somehow, it made him wince, his hard resolve wavering dangerously when he had the inexplicable urge to embrace her. He hadn't truly heard that velvet voice speak his name in so long, hadn't watched her little pink rosebud mouth framing those syllables in what felt like forever. He'd dreamed of it, yes. Dreamed of her whispering it. Dreamed of her _gasping_ it.

He frowned, tensing and forcing those mutinous recollections away in anger. He was predictably disgusted at these inappropriate fancies that forced themselves to the surface at the worst possible time. He had admitted to himself long ago that his was a strange way of hating someone. Playing the same card as she, he opened his mouth to voice his original concern, addressing her by name for what he realized was possibly the first time. So long ago, during his artless quest for the kingdom's salvation, he'd been so in her thrall that he'd barely had the presence of mind to speak clearly in her company, much less be able to call her by name rather than her royal station. He swallowed the knot gathering in his throat.

"Zelda. When will this story get around to explaining what happened to this place while I was gone? I no longer care about your triforce legends and temples, you sent that far into my past where I can't muster any enthusiasm for it anymore. Why don't you get around to explaining to me why everything I fought for…has so easily been _decimated_?" He shook his head, growing steadily more hostile now that his tongue was free. "For the welfare of this place, I sacrificed everything I had…my life, my youth, _any_ chance of a normal life…and then any chance at happiness as I was forced to go all the way back and live through it all again!"

The young woman's eyes were round and glassy, staring almost unseeingly at his face. "What do you mean…live through it all again? Knowing all you knew…" her brow furrowed, trying to grab onto what he was saying with her thoughts alone. "You would never have allowed him to use you to unseal the Sacred Realm with the spiritual stones…you would never have had to live through the War…"

Link's returned stare was icy as he advanced on her, unable to keep the visage of disinterested composure he'd held through her tale. "Didn't you understand Ganondorf still lived in that world, with all the same ambitions and plans as before? What did you think I'd be able to do differently? No matter what I did, events unfolded with or _without_ my help. The fall of Hyrule to Ganon was foreordained, you with your legends of destiny and reincarnation should have realized that more easily…. So instead of continuing in the loop of conquest and the ultimate _reward_ of being sent back again…"

Her face was drained of all color, eyes unfocused and glassy while her head shook back and forth, denying to herself that what he said could be possibly be the truth. She had heard his story while he spoke to Impa, but she had thought it a misunderstanding, an exaggeration. Now it stuck home: she had sentenced him, apparently unknowingly, to an endless cycle of battle and sacrifice, much like the one their destinies were locked in; some slow turning, bloody waltz with no end.

"Link…" She breathed it this time, and a fierce chill raked down his spine at the sound of it. He tried to adopt a nonplussed expression.

"I certainly considered doing it all over again, but you know…I couldn't be sure you wouldn't just send me back to the beginning once it was all over again…" there was a razor hidden in the low, quiet cadence of that voice. "But the fact was that you may have sent me back to live those years I missed, but I'd been there already. When I got into the forest, the Deku Tree was already dead. The Dodongo's Cavern was unsealed...in the Temple of Time, the master sword was already taken. The whole story was playing itself out; I was already on the job. The me _before_ I went to sleep, I was _there_, doing your bidding. There was no reason for me to stay and watch in absolute helplessness as it all unfolded before me." The corner of his mouth drew up a bit tightly and he affected a sort of aggravated shrug as his eyes drifted to the sky a moment. "Now I see I needn't have bothered at all."

The princess' noble face was white, tilted down toward the forest floor, now seeming more like a girl than a woman, her proud posture withered. Her voice, so proud and full of conviction only minutes ago now trembling furiously, "…it…it _wasn't_ supposed to be like that…"

The sound of her stammering snapped his wandering gaze back down to her in a sudden spike of fury. "Oh? Well then, aren't you absolutely blameless then? My sincere apologies for expecting better. Pray, tell me, how in your ridiculous little girl's mind was it supposed to be?" That hard edge to his voice, bordering on a quiet snarl, that alone was enough to make her cry. This wasn't Link as she remembered him. The life he'd lived away from Hyrule had utterly obliterated that sweet, shy nature of his. She'd idealized him, quietly, inconsolably longing for his return for years, picturing him sweet and peaceful, happy and utterly unreachable in the life where he'd never met her at all…

She was quickly dissolving into a tear slicked mess, hiccoughing foolishly, her composure and pride all at once completely forgotten, and she brought her hands up to her face, suddenly no longer the serene and elegant product of royal upbringing and more a woman at the end of her rope having had one last disaster begin to unravel the last of her frayed pride. "The ocarina…it was supposed to send you to a past that would never be tainted by that fate." She looked up at him, stepping closer, eyelashes wet, blue eyes glazed with the madness of her desperation. "It was supposed to send you somewhere it never happened _at all_!"

Link opened his mouth to reply, a hateful expression suddenly replaced by one of caution as his eyes were drawn over the princess' slumped shoulder to the shadowed canopy of the Woods. He hesitated, listened below the soft spatial whisper of the continuing rain; below the quick, pained breathing of the former noble to hear a vague but telltale creak. Reflex took over, and his shield was off his back before Zelda had even glanced up in alarm, his free arm swept her behind the steel defender with him. She never had time to demand a reason or question the propriety of where his hands caught her waist or how tight he pulled her back against him. She was barely behind the shield when barbed tip of a Umbaru bolt appeared, embedded in the wooden backing in front of her eyes, barely stopped by the plated metal. With a startled, sharp gasp, she jerked back against him, all thought of her modesty vanished. Her fingers were suddenly tangled in his cloak, eyes bright and wide, her mouth slightly agape, checks still wet.

Tears ceased and dead silence followed, broken only by the sound of the Zelda's alarmed respiration before the shield was slowly shifted, cautious of another projectile from the trees, and the slow slide of metal replaced the tense hush as Link drew his blade just a few inches from its scabbard with his left hand, keeping her tight between himself and the oversized steel rondache braced with his right.

Against her neck, his low voice hissed, his breath against her ear enough to send an icy shudder crawling down her spine that wasn't altogether as unpleasant as his tone. "Either you've been careless enough to have been followed, or your useless hysterics have called some rather inconvenient attention our way, _princess_."

That last word, much to her dismay, held an unmerciful nastiness that, under different circumstances that were now a world and a lifetime away, would have earned him a different reaction than her frozen fear. A new hot charge shot through her sinuses as she bit back new tears. At this rate, the explanation he'd unceremoniously demanded of her earlier would be even more difficult to squeeze past her lips. She'd been dreading it before; now that clandestine and horrible truth grated its sharp edges on her insides, tangling her stomach up around itself. Now she wasn't sure which she dreaded turned against her more: his sword or his unexpectedly sharp tongue.

Sliding out from the shadows was a man, tall and copper skinned with a heavy crossbow slung over his armored shoulder. He wore an indifferent expression of faultless superiority relaxed across his broad, square face. Wordlessly, he released the halberd bound to his back into his hands, the crossbow all at once disappearing into the arsenal on his back or into the shrubbery at his feet as he walked into the clearing, his pitch dark hair swinging behind him in a long plait that nearly reached his knees. He cut an intimidating figure, to be sure, but, as Link noted from the way Zelda's hand clenched a tight fistful of his cloak and her shaking breath sucked in and held, she recognized him. She whispered something under her breath, too quiet to discern what it was, but the effect was the same.

Just that reaction made Link's skin crawl, set his blood suddenly boiling, his stomach twisting. His hand went tight on his sword, already looking for a place to deposit the girl so he could find an opening to draw the folded steel razor across that exposed throat and have done with him. The man twisted his head on the pedestal of his thick neck, cracking it casually on both sides, strolling forward with the halberd propped against his bare copper shoulder as though he hadn't just shot a bolt from the shadows. The humid breeze fluttered his voluminous white robe, which seemed more for show than anything, as he wore it open and without sleeves, so it merely hung about his huge shoulders fluttering, blatantly baring the fact that he wore little chest armor save a large bronze pendant inlaid with orange stones. He wore brass belted trousers of that same, gauzy white material that tucked into his fur trimmed boots, but a heavy belt barely passed for adequate armor, and men who wore so little armor usually made Link just a touch nervous. Men like that didn't wear armor for one specific reason: it slowed them down, and if they didn't need to wear any, they didn't. While Link sunk his heels, bent his knees, the man did something that made Link like him even less: he smiled.

"Ah, little Zelda. I barely see you standing behind that big shield." He struck the pole tip of his halberd into the wet grass and started toward them at a more brisk pace, to do what, Link had no idea. He twisted his shoulders and drew his sword fully, the Goron-crafted steel screaming against the scabbard as he pulled it free and held it ready in front of them, the man's expression changing dramatically as he did so. The smirk fell off his face abruptly.

"I seem to have offended…can't imagine why? Zelda, will you call off your dog?"

She didn't reply. She seemed frozen, her eyes wide, breathing shallow, knuckles white as she held onto her handful of his scarlet cloak. She swallowed the dry knot in her throat and chanced a look up at Link's face. His eyes were already ablaze.

That horrible smile returned and he took up his weapon in one big hand, using the other brace the pole, ready to spin the crescent shaped head for momentum. "I see. You do have a way of pulling others into the holes you dig for yourself. " He stopped walking, raising his eyebrows. "Not very ladylike…or…._what_ was it that you were before you were this filth's mud covered _whore_…a Princess?"

Zelda was suddenly aware of motion, the shield coming further up and Link dropping low, pulling her with him, and the hollow, metallic clunk of the halberd striking the reinforced metal above her head. Her mind was utterly spun. Meeting Link when she was sure through her actions she'd never see him again. Arguing with him so emotionally, all the while reliving the mistakes she knew she had to explain to him, and now his arms around her and a Barbarian poleax coming down on them both. She wanted to close her eyes so hard she'd see stars, wanted to so run hard and far that her lungs would feel like they were breathing smoke, and instead did neither and let Link deposit her against a tree as he rolled away, leaving his shield in her shaking white hands to protect herself. She hadn't felt this helpless since that day…and now, how ironic. Here they both were. If she were any good at pretending anymore, she could almost imagine they were fighting over her.

And watching them fight was like watching a fever dream, surreal and almost slowed down simply by the frantic pulsing of her heart. Their figures swinging and lunging, framed and obscured by the mist, the percussive clang of the blades coming together, the shower of bright sparks, the blur of motion. She blinked it all away and squinted to focus, holding the shield more firmly in front of her with her arms and folded knees, her throat tight and clotted with a tangle of emotion so dense she could barely breathe.

The halberd jabbed, the sword blocked and swung in a gleaming parabola, the wind gust sound of the large ax whirling, the weapons flashed in the grey light and sparked together, wet dirt and brown leaves were thrown up by heels and strafes to the left and right. There were a few distinctive snicks of parting flesh, more sparks, the echo and scream of metal on metal. Without his shield, Link wielded his heavy sword with both hands, swinging it in powerful arcs around him, knocking the halberd back and his opponent backward with his teeth visibly clenched. The hood of his cloak had fallen back as he fought. A loose braid of dark butterscotch-colored hair now swung across his armored shoulders and she could finally see his face clearly, the same face she had seen a hundred times in her memories, so familiar and so foreign at the same time. The fury was plain on his features as he viciously brought up a leg and hammered it into the barbarian's chest as he was dipping low, sending him sprawling. Was the anger simply just part of battle? Was it because of her?

Or did he somehow already know who this man was? And what he had done? What she had allowed, practically _asked_ him to do? The thought summoned a blade of ice twisting deep in the pit of her abdomen.

Just as she watched Link lunge forward at his opponent (whose name he had never asked and whose name Zelda would never forget) who was stumbling backwards from the blow, a hand clawed tight on her shoulder and a scream leapt from her mouth before she could stop it. She'd been so intensely focused on the battle, her guard had completely dropped. She even held the shield with limp wrists, so lost in the spectacle that she hadn't even been defending herself. Somehow, with the way things had been going, this was only another misfortune in a long line caused by her incompetence. Just one mistake after another, she knew this would be no different.

At the sudden ejaculation of her scream, Link's attention flew in her direction just as he'd been watching for the moment the halberd's blade bounced off his to swing low for the counterattack. His head snapped toward her, and the blunt head of the ax thrust hard in his abdomen, and with a sharp grunt, he dropped to his knees gasping, rolling to the side to avoid the sweeping blow to the ground that followed at his heels, and another swing meant for his head just as his completed the evade. He ducked, still winded from the blow, spun the tufted leather handle in his hand and held the sword like a huge dagger, pushing off hard with his heel and powering through with his tricep tensed in a quick spin that the barbarian didn't see and couldn't have expected. Oh, the satisfying give of flesh under the edge of his blade. The swing caught him in his bare ribcage, the garish rift opening to paint a crimson splash across the side of the man's fluttering white robe as he staggered back, grimacing, his guard completely dropped for just long enough for Link to shift his stance backward and draw his bow from his back, arrow notched.

Several things happened at once: he pulled the 50 pound bowstring back steadily while the tall copper skinned man rose on the horizon of his peripheral. He brought the leftmost fletching of the arrow to his mouth as he pulled it back past his face, wetting the feathers with his tongue just a second before letting it fly and depositing the bow back on his strap, twisting to avoid a swing from his closer challenger. The arrow flew, veering left with the air resistance cut on one side by the wet fletching, and caught the newly appeared companion of his opponent, right below the right shoulder blade and sinking deep and solid. The man, shorter but just as copper and thick limbed as the other, howled and his grip on the Princess failed. Angrily, he flung her down into the wet topsoil and started toward the scuffle himself.

Even as Link blocked another swing from the whirling poleax, he caught sight of his additional opponent, now within his range. He looked much as the same as the other, though if he were pressed, Link would have to describe him as ugly by comparison with the other, squat and armored more heavily, with all the plates secured by indigo sashes that crossed and crisscrossed his torso, shoulders, arms. And strapped onto his forearms and fists with those same sashes were long, three pronged claws that, as soon as he was in range, he put to use immediately, taking a dishonorable but effective swipe at Link's back.

And, oh yes, they were sharp. Sharp as the devil. Sharp enough that they went right through the cloak and his mail, carving three long rents across his back just as his sword was lunging on the taller, braid-swinging barbarian. A red mist of burning agony filled his vision, threatening to blot everything out. He grit his teeth, holding in the cry and using the pain like fuel to push, to power forward harder, harder, and he welcomed once again that sick joy at the feeling of flesh parting, and the confirmation of the viscous spray that spattered his hands, gave that ridiculous white robe another coat of scarlet. The spray wet his hands, hit his face, and still unfocused, he freed a bloody hand from the sword and hammered his elbow into the man's face. He blinked fast, spinning away on instinct, catching his breath, feeling the hot blood striping down his back, stinging with sweat in the wounds, and the roar of the blood in his ears subsided enough to hear the barbarian screaming on the ground, blood falling like ribbons out of his crushed nose, arm half severed below the elbow; the sword having been stopped halfway through the split bone.

Link didn't have time to be surprised, the claws swiped again, now both of them with the rush of air going through the blades, and he knocked them back with a wild swing and a shower of blue sparks. He kicked hard and took out a knee, reaching back into his back for a familiar handle, which he caught and launched out into the air with a metallic pop, distracting the attention of his new opponent towards the sound.

And with that red mist creeping around the edges of his vision and the princess sprawled in the dirt nearby, possibly injured, he needed to end this fight before more challengers arrived.

He swung the chain at the man like a whip and lassoed the claws in it, clenching against the stinging throb of his lacerated back, and pulled hard on the handle of the hookshot, sending his opponent stumbling forward. Link leapt up for momentum, sword behind his head swinging down towards the open, unguarded back crossed with blue sashes like an executioner's axe.

Before he could bring the sword down, the man followed his own momentum forward and rolled both out of range and, worse than that, out of the chains. Link's sword met with the ground, the impact shaking the blade in his clenched hands, and his attention was suddenly called to Zelda on the forest floor in front of him, a mauve bruise already forming on her temple and cheekbone, holding herself up on her elbows and watching intently. The sword had kissed the ground in front of her, leaves flying, and those crystalline blue eyes locked with his. Just a timeless fraction of a second before she screamed his name, shattering that frozen moment with a cry of terror.

He didn't need to wonder why. The man with the claws was at his back, the claw strapped to his right fist was plummeting into his back at exactly the place where the blood was seeping through his torn cloak; where the swipe to his back earlier had damaged the chainmail and he could sink them through to the hilt. The tips punctured through his chest, gleaming in front of his shocked eyes for a frozen moment as all sound drained from the world. The tail end of Zelda's scream as she brought herself up on her palms abruptly shrank away, all was silent save the hammer of his own heart beating wildly against his ribs like an infuriated bird thrashing in its cage. His mouth opened to scream but nothing came out, only a labored hiss as he gasped in and twisted his waist to turn fast, the sword just barely bouncing up from hitting the ground. It had all happened so fast, and just as quickly as the silence had descended, it lifted as he whipped around, pulling himself free of the implanted blades with a sick slurping sound, swinging his sword hard with his left hand in his most trusted spin attack. Hard and fast, his arm whipped around and followed through, cutting through his assailant's neck with the precision and cleanliness of a razor. As quickly as that, the man was no threat. His head dropped away, carried in the momentum of the blow, tumbling end over end across the leafy clearing towards where the other man had fallen, but was now nowhere to be found.

The red mist returned to his vision with a fury, misery screaming through his veins, and his body followed the inertia of his heavy sword to the ground where it imbedded in the wet brown decay and he leaned on it, down on one knee, his right palm braced down in the muck with blood pattering down from his chest like a soft rain.

The princess was crying again, about the head or about the blood or about his injury, he couldn't choose which it was most likely regarding. Hard to decide. Maybe a little bit of all of them. He was breathing hard, trying to find a solution, mentally taking inventory of his pack. He couldn't remember what he had in his bottles, if anything. Red potion? Did he have a bottled fairy left? Was he beyond those things? Every time his heart throbbed, a fresh rain of blood rattled on the leaves below. He felt Zelda's hands on his back, pulling on him, tilting him back, and he went with her, out of ideas, his mind twisting sounds and shapes around themselves like smoke.

He fell into her lap, wincing with the pressure of her legs against the slices on his back. She was speaking, but he couldn't hear. A tear trembled on the soft point of her chin, her eyes bright with horror, her hands on his face, smoothing back his hair, tugging on the ties on his tunic to look at the wound.

And with the vision of her face, the rainfall against the leaves overhead picking up speed and the beating of his heart, he closed his eyes and could finally hear that elusive tune for which he had been desperately searching, wafting away on the breeze all around him. He reached up and caught her hand against his cheek, slick with rain and blood, and he thought that perhaps there were worse ways to die.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

**To be continued**...

If you're enjoying the story, I would very much appreciate your taking a moment to leave me a review! I am diligently working on editing Chapter 4 for posting in the next week or so. -E.G.


	4. Fixed Stars

**4: Fixed Stars**

Once, when he was a child, Saria had told him that bees shouldn't be able to fly.

Shouldn't. But could, nonetheless. And this was confusing. What bees had to do with him, he had no idea.

What she meant was that bees are too big, their wings too small for their stocky bodies, and that despite that they weren't built for it and no one would have blamed any one of them for giving up entirely, they still managed it. Even if they had to work twice as hard at it, they still managed it.

Maybe it was supposed to be inspirational. He didn't know. He did know he had never cared for bees. He'd been stung more than once in his time, and while it didn't _hurt_ hurt, not like he did now, it certainly wasn't on his list of favorite things.

And why he was thinking about that now, of all times, he knew even less. Strange thoughts of all types were sifting in and out of his head, changing focus and running together like wet paint. Memories of trees and light reflected in water, recalled dialogues, snowflakes falling like feathers from a flat gray sky, the sound of laughter and metal striking metal, the scrape of feet on stone and the babble of the marketplace, full moonlight across the open fields, the cavernous echo of empty space in a subterranean, stone-walled temple, the familiar sad notes of an eastern requiem through the screaming desert wind. The marauding, blurred timeline of an entire life.

Ah, funny he should recall a requiem just now. In fact, he could hear that solumn melody in his head with distinctly more clarity than what was happening around him; almost as though his memories were tangible and trickling into the present, overflowing into it like too much wine poured into a goblet. Even now, her lips were moving, but all he heard was the rush of a long ago wind and the sound of a sweet-voiced harp teaching him the notes to bring a child back to the desert.

What a waste.

A deep throbbing sting ripped him out of the smoke and mirrors game his blood loss was playing with him, like exploding up from underwater. He grunted sharply through clenched teeth, the shockwave of pain echoing down his spine and through the marrow of his bones. His neck arched back against her legs at the first smoldering tremor, and as he gasped hard to catch his breath, a second burning onslaught threw cold water on his burning agony. His bloodstained hand came up to grasp her wrist, his eyes coming to focus on the blue syrup in the vial she held tilted over the wound, standing garish and half exposed under his mangled chainmail. She'd already unlaced his tunic.

"What the…_hell_ is that?" he breathed, his vision fogged ominiously black around the edges. Normally he wouldn't have even thought to say such a thing to her. But such seemed unimportant at the moment, with that godforsaken chemical searing misery through every nerve in his body. He squeezed her wrist to emphasize that he wanted her to stop.

"Chu Salve, it's highly hemostatic." The princess voice was back in place, though it wavered noticeably. She meant business, which he found admirable somewhere in the back of his mind that was functioning behind the black curtain of blinding, burning pain. "The damaged tissue contracts to seal the severed blood vessels, at least long enough for me to bind the wound. Can you breathe, does it hurt?"

He tilted back his head, watching the green and gray shift of the tree canopy overhead in the half light, and he inhaled slowly. And. Oh, it killed.

"I can breathe." Maybe that didn't sound very convincing, but it was the best he could do.

"It hurts," she concluded, tilting the vial one more time. The sapphire syrup bathed the punctures again, and he stifled a curse he would normally never have even dreamed of using in her royal presence.

"I apologize, I realize how uncomfortable it must be…" she sounded ready to cry again.

Link's head was swimming, his vision flickering in strength like a candle flame. His fingers were going numb, his whole body sinking into a bone deep chill that wrapped around him in a slowly tightening grip, ready to drag him into his grave. He could feel it: the straining of his heart, the icy flood of each painful, knifing breath that shot from his tailbone up to his back teeth, his strength draining ounce by fluid ounce. He could taste blood, coppery and hot, washing up in the back of his throat.

He was going to die. Chu salve or not, she was grasping at straws.

"Link. _Link_. Look at me!" Her cold hands were on his face again, tilting his head towards her. "Stay with me, okay? Don't close your eyes. Listen, let's get your armor off and I can bind your chest. I don't know if…" her voice went a little shrill before she calmed herself. "I don't know if your lung is punctured. I need Impa's help."

"The…_Temple_…is more than a half day's journey on foot…"

She was busily unlacing the leather thongs along the shoulder his ruined chainmail and talking about her camp nearby, and he had the strangest urge to laugh. Of all the times he'd quietly fantasized about her frantically undressing him, this had never quite been the scenario. The rawhide clasp at his throat came free, and she tugged the armor open. As she shifted the mail, the wet silk lining of the armor peeled away from his skin, glued with the blood running from the rents across his back that he'd almost completely forgotten about. The pain was all just meshing together by now.

Zelda's hands were pulling on his shoulders, easing him up to sit against her, and he mindlessly allowed it, gritting his teeth with the effort it took to pull his muscles into compliance. He sucked in a quick breath that sliced through him like a lungful of broken glass, and he shuddered, coughing hard as his chest spasmed in violent protest. There was blood in his mouth, and she was pushing a bottle against his lips.

Yes. This was death at its most glamorous.

Before he could protest, another of her foul Sheikan syrups ran over his tongue and down his throat. It tasted like dead flowers smelled, except more noxious and he fought his gag reflex valiantly. Once she'd poured what she felt was an acceptable dose, she tilted the little bulb of a bottle backward and recorked it before stashing it away and returning to the task of pulling off his armor without a word as to what she'd administered.

"Putting me out of my misery?" he inquired acidly. He was only half-joking.

"Of course not. It's just laudanum." The mail shook as she eased his arm free. Already she was daubing the chu salve on his back with a cloth. "…These need to be stitched."

"_Laudanum_," he coughed. "Might as _well_ have been poison…I won't last ten minutes…" In fact, he already felt the pull of sleep that the opiate would unquestionably bring along with it. Maybe it was just the power of suggestion, but everything was flattening out around him, her voice stretching like she was speaking to him from the end of a long corridor.

"You haven't been listening…Impa will…" He heard her ripping fabric, then the quick, tight tug of her wrapping the scraps around his chest. If she was talking, he couldn't hear her. All he could concentrate on was a dull buzz in his head, like the remembered drone of bees in the forest meadow. Bees reminded him of Saria. Once a long time ago, when he was a child, Saria had told him that bees shouldn't be able to fly. Shouldn't, but could nonetheless. Even if they had to work twice as hard at it and no one would blame the little things for giving up on it altogether.

Though at the time, he hadn't known why she'd told him that. What bees had to do with him, he had no idea. But Saria hadn't been talking about bees. She'd been talking about him. Stupid, no-fairy kid. No one had ever expected anything of him but failure. Except Saria. And, well…Zelda, he supposed.

It looked as though they'd both been sadly mistaken. He'd failed in just about every way he could. With the narcotic crawling slowly through his body, he was even failing at even keeping his eyes open. They were sliding closed already, and he braced himself on one arm as he felt the unavoidable tip forward as his muscles started involuntarily relaxing.

"_Why_ didn't I ask what you were giving me…?"

He felt her hands as she was catching him, felt her breath on his bare, blood-wet shoulder. She was speaking, but her voice was strange; mottled and indistinct, and all he could discern was her cadence, like listening to a conversation through a closed door. Despite how he reached out for it to catch hold of it and hang on, the low, sing-song rhythm of her voice shrank away, and he sank under the surface of a black unconsciousness.

It didn't feel like sleep, more like the familiar but strange disorienting sensation of time travel. He'd no sooner felt everything drop away out from under him than he was opening his eyes, clearly hours later in the starlit darkness, to the gentle rustle and pop of wood burning. His eyes slit open to find an amber glow burning a hole in the dark, warming the front of his body. He blinked sluggishly, fighting to focus, shifting under the heavy shearling-lined blanket and peering around. Though with the shift of his muscles came the knifing pain, the gripping cold, and a new, strange furor bubbling in the cauldron of his mind the more alert he became. The low grumble of the fire seemed much louder than it should, almost like a sort of rolling thunder that didn't fade, and he squinted against it. His brain was throbbing with a ferocious headache; his mouth and throat so dry it felt like dust; his breath so fever-hot it might as well have been steam. But he'd be damned before he asked for water. In fact, the very thought insulted his sense of pride.

He shifted painfully, swallowing a moan, watching the fire for a few minutes while he willed the pain away, breathing slow, measured breaths.

_Don't move. Just lay still. Who cares where she is…who cares…_

As his eyes shifted out of focus, suddenly he could see her through the fire, her back against a tree trunk, his chainmail spread out on her lap. With a metal tool in her hand, she was realigning the links and pinching them shut; repairing the damage as best was possible.

Through the flames, her movements were methodical, almost slow motion like in a vivid memory being recalled. Her hair was undone, laying wild across her shoulders and she was seemingly ablaze, her gold hair and skin lit with the flames licking up around her in his field of vision; a burning phoenix in the dark forest night that transfixed his semi-coherent gaze, observing her delicate face as she watched her working hands so intently. He regarded her long enough that suddenly he had the strongest compulsion to speak; and as he was still under the twilight of the drug she'd given him, his tongue seemed apt to do as it wished.

"Why?" he asked the flaming apparition, this personification of Din herself or some burning seraphim, and with a jerk of her head of golden fire, she looked up, through the fire and flames to where he lay. She laid the chainmail to the side with a metallic rustle and hurried the bedroll, kneeling beside him and looking down; no longer the fire goddess but disheveled and damp, her blue eyes rimmed red and more human than he could ever recall, something which made him suddenly and intensely uncomfortable. As if listening to her cry hadn't been awful enough.

"Link," she whispered, brushing stray hair from his forehead. "What did you say?"

"_Why,_" he rasped dryly, twisting to the side, away from her cautious hand, just wanting to be further from her but inexorably unable to escape. Which was funny, since that's how most of his life had felt. Like running from things that inevitably found him no matter where he hid and how much he denied them. "I want to know why."

Her brow furrowed, her head shaking a little bit back and forth while she spoke, the shadows of moving firelight. "Why what, Link?"

"Why did you let this _happen_? You never answered me. How did all of those fortifications put in place fail so quickly? The sages…h-how could your Nayru let this happen under her watch? She could have called for me…"

Zelda looked stricken, her hand coming up against her mouth as she uttered a heartfelt, wordless murmur into her palm. Already her eyes were bright with new tears, even in the vesper. "Because, Link…Nayru…" her voice snagged in her throat, but she forced the words through anyway. The words that she'd been dreading to let slip past her lips and into the air between them where she could deny their truth no longer.

"…Nayru has abandoned me."

She couldn't look at him. Couldn't look up to see his face. She only continued, staring hard at the ground between them, continuing to speak because . "Her guidance…her wisdom…her protection…they have all been _lost_ to me from the moment she withdrew... A-and, because of that…I couldn't…"

Her voice was shrill, pinched but hushed, just a pained whisper tumbling past her lips. She didn't dare lift her gaze until he began to shift, trying to prop himself up on his elbows to look at her more levelly, but he hissed in sudden pain and she started, her hands coming up instinctually to aid him, even as he waved them away and settled back down flat, his hand flexed over his bandaged chest as he pulled in a shuddering breath.

"_Abandoned you_?" he began, more forcefully, hissing through his teeth. "What do you mean _aband—"_

"Oh, you're bleeding again…you shouldn't have moved like that." Her voice was raw, but indeed, red was blossoming fresh on the slipshod bandages triangulated across his chest. The swell of pain was back in full force, ripping through him like a blistering blue fire, squeezing the air from his lungs.

As she was pressing a fresh cloth from her pack to his chest, he snatched her right hand determinedly and, even as she tried to pull it away, he tugged off her glove to see the back of her delicate hand, now clearly devoid of the pale triforce insignia they had once shared. He stared at it blankly, his expression pale but incredulous, and the longer he held it there, the more her stomach turned to stone.

Finally she twisted her hand away, her face averted in excruciating shame. "Did you think I would _lie_ about that?"

He closed his eyes against the bewilderment while she continued pressing the cloth firmly to his seeping wound.

"Would you…?" He breathed, squinting at her uncertainly. His voice seemed far away, like he was swiftly slipping back into the opiate smoked oblivion she'd hoped would pacify him until Impa made it back to the camp. Chasing the dragon back into the shadows. "Why would she…do such a thing?"

As a response, and maybe as a distraction, she laid her bare hand against his forehead at his vacant, staring eyes with their glitter of quiet hysteria. "Lord. You're burning alive."

He bent his head away from her slowly with his brow furrowed, expressing his obvious aversion to her touch, but he said nothing, only let out a long, shaking breath and fell into a silence that unnerved her enough after a few moments to press her fingers against his throat to feel for a pulse. He'd lost consciousness again; whether it was the pain or the laudanum, she'd never know. It was possible he wouldn't recall waking up nor their conversation by morning, but if she knew anything about Link at all, and she liked to think she did…a little…he'd remember word for word what she'd said. Not that she'd been particularly eloquent or specific. The explanation he'd been demanding of her wasn't something she could tell him while he lay there, prone and openly vulnerable as he was now. He would hate it, and she couldn't stand to see the expression on his face when he found out why she'd been forsaken by the goddess' good graces and all her high born sensibilities protested violently at the thought.

No. The fact was that _she_ couldn't believe it; she still instinctually wanted to deny her part in it. She still wanted to be a victim of circumstance.

But the fact was that there was no one to blame for it except herself and her own imprudence. Despite what her father had said, she wasn't ready for the weight of the entire kingdom on her shoulders. She had proven that incontestably. And now her noble Father was dead. His empire of divine light lay in blackened ruin from the mountain range to the southern forest. Nabooru was dead, the Desert Colossus reduced to a devastated wasteland. Hundreds of others, both nameless to her and others held deep in her heart, had now been long buried in payment for her selfish whims. Once she'd thought of herself as strong and capable; a woman warrior who had once walked the land under the very nose of the Desert King, disguised as a Sheikan scout with her face covered, hair and breasts bound tight; armed with all the agility and battle capabilities in which Impa had so painstakingly trained her, and the imbuement of Nayru's wisdom to give her an impenetrable safeguard. Once she'd thought she would slide as easily into the role of regent as effortlessly as she had into the skin of Sheik, but…instead, her talent for stern, confident communication and diplomacy in the heat of political disagreement had been more woefully lacking than even she had anticipated.

But she didn't want to think about it all now.

Perhaps when Link was more himself, when Impa had returned and tended to his wounds, when he wasn't lying inert and bloody and she could look him in the eye more easily, then she would consider explaining all of this to him. For now, he was terribly wounded, deep in the thrall of pain and opiates…and still he'd done more for Hyrule in the single, though surprisingly grisly, murder of one stout Barbarian lord than anyone had in the years of his absence. She re-submerged her cloth in her basin of clean water, wrung it, and laid it gently across his forehead and left it for a long moment before removing it, flipping it over and pressing the cool side to his cheek, then the side of his neck where his sweat damp hair clung to the dewy, pallid skin.

The years of his absence from Hyrule had been such cruel ones. Looking down on him, laying there as she'd only ever been able to imagine, she wondered fiercely where he had been every day since she'd last laid eyes on him; sending him away to a place she'd foolishly thought would be free of the hardships their time had faced. Her understanding of the ocarina had been obviously flawed; he could very well have been mistaken for his part of it, after all, here he was; laying static under her hands, breathing lightly, his dark gold hair unbound and laying in a chaotic damp tangle across the burgundy fabric of her down-stuffed bedroll. She reached up to brush her fingertips through it, then hesitated and drew back, wanting with everything she had to force her eyes away from his firelit face. But instead, she only studied it more intently from the sloped curve of his jaw to the soft point of his nose, the twin freckles high on his cheekbone, the thin line of a scar that cut across the fine tail of his left eyebrow, the tawny fringe of his closed eyelashes and the smears of blood on his shoulders and throat. Doing so felt so foolish, like a frivolous child transfixed at a gift they are not allowed to open, but something in her…as it had always been, just couldn't help it, and was slave to the infuriating and irrefutable urge.

Even in the light of the dire situation, it was all flooding back: the familiar glut of possessive, indefatigable emotion that had assaulted her since the first time she'd ever laid eyes on him as a young girl. Even looking upon him now, matured and changed to the point being nearly unrecognizable on sight, still that bizarre charge fired in her the moment she'd seen him again in the forest, and now, despite their argument, it lingered and burned somewhere deep in her, beneath her pulse, beneath her thoughts. It was almost instinctual, subliminal; an utterly enigmatic but nevertheless pressing desire to be near him. It was something elusive, and much harder to kill off than she'd imagined. It had survived years of starvation and drought despite her efforts to quash thoughts of him at every turn, and now they boiled in a fever pitch under the all guilt and shame the remembered abandonment of her divine benefactor had brought back into pitiless focus.

And more than anything, she wanted to ask him why he hadn't just come back to Hyrule after…after those long expected black clouds had lifted. If he'd known all along he could return, as she had not…why had he chosen to stay away from the land he had brought back from the brink of Hell?

Why had he chosen to stay away from _her_?

It was a selfish demand she wished to make of him. She knew that, and as much as she wanted to, she wouldn't ask. She should have been able to be trusted with the safety of her own kingdom. As the seventh sage. As an honorary warrior of the lost shadow race. As the holder of the triforce of wisdom.

As Princess Zelda XXIII, daughter of the Great King of Hyrule and successor to his regency.

Her own voice echoed around in the caverns of her hollow conscience_. Link…How many times have you and I been cursed to be reborn over and over…all to protect this land? _

What a waste, this curse of eternal return. A cycle of misery and sacrifice only to end in this endless failure. Sisyphus' boulder rolling back down the hill.

"_After all,"_ Impa had once said, revealing to her the arcane magic of the royal Ocarina_. "What is time but a snake that eats its own tail?"_

She hated it all, time, fate, failure, her future and past all governed by fixed stars. Hated _herself _for being a helpless slave to it and throwing that wheel into motion. She had always thought herself above that, even during Impa's tales of the endless Legend of Hyrule and its tragic repeating circuit with the same players forced into their roles over and over, whether by soul or by blood, it was always the same.

Now…even her own reflection, she couldn't look at it anymore without bending her gaze away in disgrace for being such a fool to think she could untangle the thread of fate.

And she hated that Impa was right. She _was_ afraid of him. Just a little. But, stupidly, it wasn't because she'd just watched him hack off the head of a man and maim another in the space of a few breaths, as effortlessly as clipping roses. It was because of the way he was going to look at her when she told him why those men had deserved what he'd done to them and worse.

It was because of how he would look at her with disappointment and disdain when she told him why she honestly deserved the same treatment. More than anyone else, she couldn't stand the idea of his looking at her with the same naked contempt as she felt when she looked at herself in a mirror.

Zelda quietly re-submerged the cloth in the cold water, pushing it down in the basin with spread out fingers, watching it bubble up and swell with icy water before she retrieved it and twisted it gently, removing the bulk of the liquid before replacing it on his forehead, pressing it down with her palm for a long moment as though to wick away the excess heat while something hot and wet skipped down her cheek and fell like a warm raindrop to the sodden loam below.

And she did. For what she had done, she deserved to die. But she was too cowardly to do even that.

_________________________________________________________________________________

To be continued…


End file.
